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Princess Latifa in a video: "I am a hostage"
Photo:
picture alliance / AP Photo
The journey that was to lead to the longed-for freedom had been planned over a long period of time and with great care.
It began on the morning of February 24, 2018: Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, one of the daughters of the Emir of Dubai, was chauffeured to a breakfast café in the city center and met Tiina Jauhiainen, her Finnish fitness trainer, who became a close friend.
In the cafe's toilet, Princess Latifa changes her clothes and deliberately leaves her muted cell phone lying around.
Outside, the two women get into a black Audi Q7 that they borrowed from a friend.
Jauhiainen gets behind the wheel and steers the car over the next border into neighboring Oman.
In this way, what had failed before should finally succeed: The emir's daughter wants to escape the golden cage in which her father keeps her prisoner.
New details of the adventurous journey and its brutal ending
The fact that she failed to escape again, that she was brought back to Dubai by her father's agents a few days later and locked in a villa, has made headlines around the world.
Through research by an international media network, which includes the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« and the British »Guardian«, new details of the adventurous journey and its brutal end have now become known.
The successful attempt by the Dubai authorities to track down and arrest the fugitives is, according to the findings now published, possibly due to the surveillance software Pegasus.
The cell phone numbers of Princess Latifa and some of her friends and acquaintances are then recorded in files that list possible targets of the spy program.
The Pegasus software can be transferred to smartphones completely unnoticed and then transmits practically all communication.
However, the Israeli manufacturing company NSO attaches importance to the statement that its program is only used in the fight against criminals and terrorists - the hunt for a fleeing daughter does not correspond to the task profile.
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Emir Al Maktoum: ruthless patriarch
Photo: Amr Nabil / AP
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the almost all-powerful ruler of Dubai, is not used to being limited by anyone.
The father of at least 25 children has expanded his emirate into a rigid surveillance state, whose glittering facades can easily hide the harshness with which the country is governed.
The alarm bells are ringing in the security apparatus
Even as a patriarch at the head of an extended family, the 72-year-old often ruthlessly asserts his interests.
In the summer of 2000, he had his then 19-year-old daughter Shamsa kidnapped from Cambridge, England, to Dubai, as a court in London found a year ago.
In the process it was primarily about the sixth wife of the emir, Haya bint Hussein from the Jordanian royal family.
She moved to London with her two children in 2019 and took legal action against her husband's attempt to get the children back.
When Princess Latifa left Dubai on February 24, 2018, the alarm bells were ringing in the Dubai security apparatus: The emir wants his daughter back.
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The two women in the black Audi have adjusted to the fact that they will be searched for with all their might. To avoid digital surveillance, they got new cell phones and SIM cards. After a six-hour drive, they arrive in the Omani capital, Muscat. At the port they meet a liaison officer who takes them to international waters in a fast rubber dinghy. There they switch to jet skis and arrive at the sailing yacht “Nostromo”, a 30-meter-long two-master with two diesel engines. Your destination is Sri Lanka.
The skipper on the "Nostromo" is Hervé Jaubert, who worked as an engineer for the French Navy and as an agent for the country's foreign intelligence service.
Jaubert then wanted to set up business in Dubai with diving boat trips for tourists, but came into conflict with the authorities, was arrested and fled.
Jaubert seems made for the task of helping Princess Latifa to freedom.
For a fee of 350,000 euros, as Jauhiainen later stated in a London court according to the Guardian, the Frenchman took on the explosive job.
The friends feel safe from surveillance
In the first days at sea everything goes according to plan.
With a smooth journey, with no pursuer on the radar, the princess and Jauhiainen use their new cell phones to contact friends and acquaintances in Dubai.
They can access the Internet via a satellite connection installed on the yacht, and they feel safe from surveillance.
Jaubert switched off the digital position indicator.
Nevertheless, a ship finally appears on the radar that appears to be tracking the "Nostromo".
And small machines like those used to control sea routes move across the sky.
Even the most recent research has not been able to conclusively clarify what exactly happened on that day at the beginning of March 2018.
Did the US military track down the Nostromo satellite line and pass the data on to Dubai?
Did the FBI assist the emir, who is a friend and ally of Washington, in the hunt down of his daughter?
Different theories are in circulation.
Latifa had a strange feeling during a chat
Now it turns out that the Pegasus spying software could have put the investigators from Dubai on the trail.
One of the numbers from the princess's environment that are listed in the files that have now emerged is that of Sioned Taylor.
The Briton taught mathematics at a girls' school in Dubai and made friends with the emir's daughter while skydiving together.
Skydiving was one of the few freedoms that Princess Latifa was allowed to take.
During a chat with Taylor, Latifa had a strange feeling: "I'm not sure it's really Sioned." That's how Tiina Jauhiainen now told the Guardian.
On March 4, after 10 p.m., the Indian Coast Guard ended the escape from Dubai.
15 emergency services stormed the »Nostromo«.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the action.
Emirati security forces were already waiting and received the escaped princess and her companions.
Jauhiainen and Jaubert were soon released, Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum was put under house arrest in Dubai.
In a video that went public earlier this year, she said, "I'm a hostage."
Her life may have taken a new turn since then.
In May, Sioned Taylor posted a photo on Instagram of her sitting with the princess in a restaurant in Dubai.
The situation seems relaxed.
There is a picture from June showing Latifa at Madrid airport.
Proof that she is free to travel?
In a statement distributed by a law firm, the daughter of the Emir of Dubai is quoted as saying: "I now hope that I can lead my life in peace without being watched by the media." said, can not be verified.
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